[2] The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services defines an "aging out" case as, "a situation referring to a person's petition to become a permanent legal resident as a child, and in the time that passes during the processing of the application, the child turns 18 and ages out.".
[4] Children who grow up in foster care have lower rates of high school and post-secondary education completion.
Using the PRISMA methodology (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses), Gypen et al. (2017) systematically gathered published research articles from electronic databases such as PsycINFO, Springer, Science Direct, and Google Scholar.
[9] Gypen et al. (2017) suggests that this means that if given more time, children who grew in foster care, have a higher chance of getting a high school diploma or GED.
[6] They also found that during the first year of college, children who age out of foster care were two times more likely to drop out,[10] although there are indications that women have better outcomes than men (Naccarato et al.
[11] Pecora, Williams et al. (2006) found that 42.7% started education after high school but by the age of 25, only 9.6% were still enrolled.
[12] The San Francisco Chronicle reports that less than half of emancipated youth who have aged out graduate from high school, compared to 85% of all 18- to 24-year-olds; fewer than 1 in 8 graduate from a four-year college; two-thirds had not maintained employment for a year; fewer than 1 in 5 was completely self-supporting; more than a quarter of the males spent time in jail; and 4 of 10 had become parents as a result of an unplanned pregnancy.
[13] Independent Living Programs (ILPs) are ways in which state and federal agencies have assisted foster youth in their transition to adulthood.
[12] In 1999, President Clinton signed the Foster Care Independence Act, which doubled federal funding for independent living programs and provides funding for drug abuse prevention and health insurance for former foster care youth until age 21.